1.357 participants from 52 nations: with these results Carapelli for Art 2019 is officially over. Thanks to all the participants, the Jury, the Academies and the winning artists. Waiting to discover those of the III° edition of the competition, here are the four finalists of the second edition who were awarded last October in the prestigious stage of the Triennale di Milano.

OPEN CATEGORY

Winners

Andrea Zucchini

Dreamwalker, 2019. 4K video, Stereo sound 15’ e 30”

Dreamwalker by Andrea Zucchini, a moving image installation exploring the connection of material environments to the human psyche. A reverie of places infused with echoes of the artist's adolescence, the film dives into trauma and latent desires. Zucchini orchestrates a universe of dense atmosphere, heavy bass and neon bodies, where interior and natural landscapes merge into one.

Zucchini's dream walk departs from the Camonica Valley and snakes on looping paths in and around his birth town, Brescia, at the foothills of the Alps in Northern Italy. The Camonica Valley was sculpted by a melting glacier during the last ice age, which left behind monolithic geological formations, known as the Zone Pyramids, and vast slabs of polished sedimentary rock. Over 10,000 years, from the Epipalaeolithic era to the early 20th century, the slabs were carved with over 300,000 engravings that now constitute a unique layering of anthropological time. Depictions of iron-smithing, labyrinths and roman inscriptions are superimposed over deer hunting and birth ritual scenes, all continuously reframing moments in time in relation to one another.

Dreamwalker suggests that this multi-temporal site makes palpable a cultural collective psyche that – rooted in the vibrant earth – carries within it an infinite array of shared histories, fantasies and anticipation. By weaving this ancient heritage into the familial settings of his youth, Zucchini articulates his own subjecthood as entwined with the collective, and his own growth and self-discovery through expectation, disappointment and loss as inextricably connected to the terrain of Brescia. As landscapes are perpetually shaped by colliding forces, so is the psyche, and their present states are continuously revising the past.

Evoking an experience of psychoanalysis, the film is narrated by two voices that guide Zucchini through a psycho-physiological deep dive. Composed as a slow, testing plunge through dream sequences that expose prevailing anxieties and lingering aches, the film portrays a body and a self undulating between states of impermeability and dissolution. Here the obscured and vulnerable human body, always in flux and charged with want, is extended with prostheses, defies fixed gender and adopts unfamiliar forms.

Loomer is a sculptural installation composed of a microphone stand, cables, materials, ultraviolet heat emitting light bulbs, various other items and acoustic transducers that pick up and amplify the electromagnetic waves of mobile phones. It is a kind of mineral automaton looming over the landscape and disturbing the view. It could also be a sign of a world no longer inhabited by organic beings that emits alien sounds as visitors approach the telephones, creating an almost godly link between them and the energy fields that surround the physical objects. An incomprehensible electronic dialogue, revealing spectral hyper-realities that spread translucently between the plots of the real present and hypothetical and past futures that show themselves to be different and changing.

Special Mention

g. olmo stuppia

Oloide 2019. Sculptural practice project

The artist proposed using the prize money to reactivate a sculptural process begun in 2013 but only partially concluded with the burial of a sculpture (l’Oloide) in a Sicilian olive grove. The next stage would entail the unearthing of the sculpture by two migrants hired with the prize money, and a re-examination of the contemporary necessity of expanding practices across the senses, time and space. The jury was duly impressed with this original response to the theme of Carapelli for Art 2019.

Laura Pugno

A futura memoria 09 2018. Jesmonite, 23x21x16cm

The object is a cast obtained by pouring jesmonite – a water-based acrylic resin – onto snow in the high mountains. The resulting sculpture on a seemingly futuristic base seems to have come from some hypothetical museum of tomorrow, and the viewer of today is prompted to ponder the possible consequence of looming environmental emergencies. The jury also appreciated the artist’s invocation of Wilson Bentley’s photos of snow crystals taken early in the last central.

ACADEMY CATEGORY

Winners

Mehrnoosh Roshanaei

Wonderland, 2019. Video, 3.5 minutes

During my studies and career in Italy, Norway and Austria, I had to deal with different respective contexts in which concepts such as family, immigration, politics and memories (among others) have different meanings in relation to language and culture. They were therefore not individually interpreted by each person. When making the video I used the predictive text function on my mobile phone, typing and choosing the first available words. Using this writing system means you can see other suggested words related to past conversations and your personal writing style. Starting with just one word and following the suggestions the system makes a text emerges that appears poetic when recited by the automated voice of the telephone. Subsequently, I then included people from different social, cultural and geographical backgrounds who I had met over the course of my career. I then put them into several unrelated situations and contexts that were alien to them. The choice to superimpose their images and to accompany said images with the automated vocal reading is a reference to how an unknown and distant language and culture can be trivialised and uniformed. In summary, Wonderland is a study of reality and on if our thoughts are really our own or if they have been manipulated.

Giacomo Alberico

Chieti, Indonesia, 2019. Leporello

Google Street View allows us to observe the world through images collected by a robotic eye in a detailed and controlled manner. When the Google car passes, everything there is frozen, stored and turned into a spherical image. This technique captures everything without discriminating. No one makes any stylistic choices and there is no possibility of seeing anything other than reality itself. Reflecting on this, I started to carry out my own research. The city where I grew up, Chieti, like many other residential hubs, has been documented and put online. Like many people living in provincial towns I developed a love-hate relationship with the places I have always known. I often wished that the city was different. I wanted it to be like to the places I loved such as fantastic metropolises or small coastal villages with year-round sun. "Chieti, Indonesia" was born from the idea of my impossible vision of Chieti. It was made public permitting strangers on Street View to be able to see the places that I had created and believe them to be real. The images that I made overturn the whole concept of Street View. They break the rule of an accurate representation of reality, all made possible by Google's nine-eye camera. The photomontages, uploaded to the system as if they were public photographs, combine locations along Chieti’s main street with various destinations and spots in Indonesia. They mix two completely different visions of the world into a single image.

Special Mention

Carlos Casuso

Interno 1, 2019, Mixed technique on canvas, 150x200cm

The judges were impressed by the work’s demonstrated intention to deal with the classic canons of painting in a genuine effort to study that does not shy away from the contradictions inherent in the act of painting.

Andrea Di Lorenzo

Foglie di fico, 2019. Fine art photographic print on paper, 90x58cm

This piece summarizes different artistic practices in a single visual moment, from sculpture to performance. Its commendable discretion and the apparent simplicity of the elements are effective means for a truly broad reflection that embraces identity, history and iconoclasm.

Carapelli Firenze promotes the Carapelli for Art award, a visual arts competition born with the intention of enhancing, promoting and supporting contemporary artists on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Tuscan company. The competition is open to all professional visual artists who operate in the various artistic fields and to students of the Fine Arts Academies.

Now in its third edition, in this particular and delicate historical moment, the award also intends to give concrete support to the sector of art and culture, hard hit by the global emergency.